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Trade Agreements and the WTO

To some extent, trade agreements and the rules of trade
administered under the World Trade Organization (WTO) are
superfluous. Americans would be better off if the U.S. government
unilaterally adopted policies that enable freer trade - reducing
tariffs, curtailing regulations and other policies that impede
competition, etc. - regardless of what other governments do. We
don’t need consent from Brussels, Tokyo or Beijing to implement the
reforms that would make our economy more efficient.

But with political aversion to unilateral liberalization, trade
agreements based on reciprocity have long been the vehicle of
choice for reform. From the founding of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 through the creation of the WTO in
1995, most U.S. trade liberalization was achieved through eight
multilateral “rounds” of negotiations under the auspices of the
GATT.

But multilateral trade liberalization has failed to produce
meaningful results since the mid-1990s. Since then, bilateral and
regional free trade agreements have emerged as preferred
alternatives - with fewer countries involved, the issues are more
manageable and it’s easier to reach agreement. By and large, trade
agreements have helped reduce domestic impediments to trade, expand
our economic freedoms and lock in positive reforms, even if only as
the residual byproduct of an ill-premised mercantilist process.

On this page you will find Cato’s work on trade negotiations,
agreements, disputes, and obligation undertaken in those agreements
and at the WTO.

Beyond any progressive tweaks, the House Democrats should demand
that the administration make changes to the broader procedural and
structural provisions of the USMCA to ensure that it can be
enforced and updated when needed.